Latest Technology News

File under "color us surprised": the KB5001391 update that Microsoft released for Windows 10 recently has been well-received by users.

Feedback about the update shows that people who have installed KB5001391 are happy not only with the fact that it adds News and Interests to the taskbar, but also that it seems to be stable and problem free. Some users are even finding that their system is performing better after installing this particular update.

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Bluetooth headphones are no longer the future of portable audio -- they are the present. Since Apple killed the 3.5mm audio jack on the iPhone, and many Android manufacturers followed along, wireless headphones have exploded in popularity. And yes, Apple AirPods are leading the trend.

The thing is, while AirPods are very popular, they aren’t necessarily the best. In fact, if you are an Android user, you should absolutely look elsewhere. Today, Silicon Power launches two new sets of wireless Bluetooth earbuds with "Blast Plug" branding. Called "BP75" and "BP80," the former can be had in three colors -- white, black, and navy blue. The latter is only available in black.

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With the release of Windows 10 Build 21370 yesterday, Microsoft gave us a glimpse of the direction in which it is taking the operating system in the coming months. As ever, the Insider build includes a number of enhancements, and chief among the improvements this time are changes to Bluetooth audio.

Perhaps the most exciting change is the arrival of support for Bluetooth AAC, delivering higher quality wireless audio streaming. There's also an important fix for an issue that has plagued people using wireless phones.

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Four-hundred-thirty-six in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Microsoft Store in the past seven days.

The next feature update for Windows 10 is almost here. Microsoft picked a build for the update this week, which is already available for testing.

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New research from IT services provider Ensono finds that security is the biggest concern for IT professionals considering, or already using, multi-cloud strategies.

UK IT professionals rate security, governance and cost optimization as their top three concerns for multi-cloud strategies, while security, cost optimization and maintaining a positive end user experience are the top concerns in the US.

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Recent high-profile supply chain attacks such as SolarWinds have highlighted how vulnerable the software development pipeline can be.

To find out more about why the CI/CD pipeline is particularly vulnerable to attacks and what can be done to prevent them, we spoke to Vickie Li, developer evangelist at ShiftLeft, which has just launched a new product, ShiftLeft CORE, aimed at reducing risk to the software code base.

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The development of PowerToys continues, and this widely appreciated labor of love is gradually gaining more and more utilities. The latest instalment in the tool's story sees Microsoft releasing PowerToys v.0.37.0.

For now, this is primarily a bug fixing and improvement-introducing release, and some important changes have been made to some of the individual utilities. As of this release, PowerToys now requires at least Windows 10 version 1903 (because of future adoption of WinUI 3). While this requirement will not represent much of an issue for many people, the fact that the eagerly anticipated Video Conference Mute is missing is a disappointment.

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You know what was funny? The excitement of iPhone users when Apple finally added home screen widget support to iOS. It was comical because Google had widget support on Android pretty much forever. In other words, the Apple faithful were getting all hot and bothered over what Android users considered "old hat."

But OK, it doesn't really matter which platform had widgets first -- both Android and iOS/iPadOS have them now. While there has long been a Pandora widget for Android, today, the music streaming company launches a new widget for Apple's mobile devices too -- as long as they are running iOS/iPadOS version 14.x.

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Yesterday, Microsoft announced that the Windows 10 May 2021 Update (21H1) was being prepared for release, with Windows Insiders in the Release Preview ring the first to be offered it.

Today, the software giant rolls out a new build to Insiders in the Dev Channel.

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We looked last week at how government agencies are adapting to remote working, but a new report from ESET shows they are also facing a growing attack surface and greater challenges from APT groups and cybercriminals.

Many of the threats facing government have come from organized criminal groups, which have been increasingly willing to work together towards a common goal. Plus the line between cybercriminals and nation-state actors continues to blur.

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The pandemic boost to digital transformation last year has brought security into the spotlight as companies have scrambled to shift almost their entire organization to remote operations.

It’s more important than ever for businesses to identify and fix risks that could leave them open to a data breach, which is why RedMonocle is adding new features to its SaaS platform aimed at helping CISOs and other security leaders anticipate threats in their technology security stack.

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A new study carried out by IDC for cloud data management company Zerto reveals that modernizing data protection, including backup and disaster recovery, is an IT priority that is crucial to digital transformation for 90.8 percent of respondents.

It also shows that 94.7 percent have seen an impact to their work-from-home data protection as a result of COVID, and that 80 percent of new applications will be deployed in the cloud or at the edge.

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Working with multiple monitors is great -- in theory. The extra space is obviously useful, as is the ability to use different screens to group together related apps, documents and windows.

Sadly, Windows 10's implementation of multi-monitor support is a little flawed, particularly when using DisplayPort. Many people with two or more screens will have experienced a problem that sees app windows being randomly rearranged, particularly after a system wakes from sleep. But this should be coming to an end as Microsoft is finally addressing the issue.

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Microsoft has released a new "C" preview update for Windows 10 ahead of May's Patch Tuesday. With the optional KB5001391 update, anyone running Windows 10 2004 and Windows 10 20H2 can get the new News and Interests feature in the taskbar.

While there are no security fixes in this update, it is still well worth installing -- not just because of the new taskbar feature, but also because of the number of performance, stability and other non-security issues it addresses.

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Linux distributions and silly names go together like peanut butter and jelly. For whatever reason, the maintainers of these operating systems seem to enjoy having fun with what they call them -- some argue it is childish. Hell, even Google -- a multi-billion dollar company -- once used sugary dessert names for the Linux-based Android operating system. I am glad the search giant stopped that nonsense.

One of the most well-known desktop Linux distributions to use funny names is Ubuntu. It famously uses the convention of an adjective and a lesser-known animal, each starting with the same letter. The letter is chosen sequentially by alphabet. For example, Ubuntu 21.04 uses the letter "H" -- "Hirsute Hippo".

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